Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am very disappointed that the Secretary General does not know and I hope it is in excess of 1 million. However, the cost of waste collection in County Laois is €360 per annum for a wheelie bin. I pay it, but it is bad value for money. It is €1 a day and €7 a week for a person in receipt of social welfare payments. I used to travel through towns years ago and practically every house had a wheelie bin. They are a rarity in some communities now because of the cost. All the talk the Department engages in on waste management and everything it measures relates only to what is collected through the system. I maintain, however, and my own instinct is, that at least 50% of houses are not even being counted or considered because they cannot afford a wheelie bin for recycling or whatever. Every time I ask this question, I am told the private sector has it. I cannot understand how a Department does not have a handle on this issue. I am surprised that nobody knows the number of people who have a bin.

We have spent decades drawing up waste management plans and we continue to talk about the different centres. However, no one talks about the 40%, 50% or 60% of houses that are outside the system. I ask the Secretary General to talk to me about that. What is the Department doing to bring more people into the system? I do not get any sense of it and never have in my life as a public representative. Is it possible for the Department to provide the committee with the number of houses from which each licensed contractor collects? Does it have that? Any time I have asked a local authority, I have been told the information is commercially sensitive but the Department cannot do its job unless it knows the answer. It cannot know what its job is in relation to waste management unless it has this information. I hope the Department can provide it. It is probably not possible to provide the information by local authority area because of contracts. AES in the midlands covers a variety of areas. What can the Department do?